When we told our hostel owner in Lima we wished to book a bus to go to Trujillo he asked why we would want to go there. I explained Jimmy wanted to go surfing and he very quickly advised us that Trujillo was not a safe place and that we needed to catch a cab straight from the bus station to Huanchacho, a beach town about 10km north of Trujillo.
Needless to say, this is what we did and checked into our hostel Oceanio, which was meant to be the best place in town. I was skeptical that for 35 soles ($15) for a double room it could be anything decent. Sure enough it was clean but extremely basic (including 'lovely' cold showers) so I wasn't so excited about spending a few days here while Jim disappeared surfing.
The town itself is fairly small but attracts a number of free spirited types who enjoy the waves and small town vibe of the place. I myself wasn't entirely impressed as it was probably a little on the grungy side for me. Dead birds on the beach and grey skies didn't help much either! Unfortunately the surf was only average too so I was gutted for Jim that he couldn't at least be enjoying himself in that respect.
Now I'm probably being too harsh on the ace though as we did end up still having a good time filling ourselves with ceviche, watching the football at a cute Dutch/English run vegetarian place Otra Cosa - free beers all round when Holland won their game, and just doing a whole lot of nothing, which is all that's required while in a small beach town. Actually I lie, we managed to fit in a run which was good, even though I was still hurting from our two in Lima but I've definitely noticed my waistline expanding these last few weeks now that we are finding some good food to eat so it's time to take action.
Our biggest complaint of the place was probably the hawkers who lined the streets basically begging you to go to their restaurants. The town seemed pretty dead so I guess they are desperate to get anyone they can into their restaurants. We ignored all the hawking though and relied on trip advisor as always, which provided us with some good spots like Restaurant Huanchacho Beach and Big Ben (which is rumored to be frequented by the Peruvian president). The view from there was pretty hard to beat I have to say.. Especially since the sun had finally made an appearance for us.
The graffiti art here wasn't too bad either so that added some colour to the otherwise fairly dull town. I do imagine in summer the place is quite different, with the water being maybe a little more inviting, as well as more people, more parties and just generally more fun.
Some roof guard dogs above. There were about 7 of them up there all barking their heads off us as we walked past. Oh Oti, I miss you so much.
The last note worth mentioning about Huanchaco are the birds. Pelicans are everywhere which is pretty awesome but there is another type of bird which I'm not sure what it is, but they are the tamest (or dumbest) birds I've ever seen. You could walk right up to them and probably pat them if you wanted (I wasn't so keen on that idea). And they aren't small! They look pretty cool though so of course I had to snap a few pictures of them.
Seeing lots of them dead on the beach was so sad though and it couldn't help but remind us of this advertisement...
South America needs some serious lessons from NZ on how important it is to not litter. It really is just so heartbreaking to see how much of a detrimental impact it has on their scenery and no doubt their wildlife.
Needless to say, after a couple of days we were ready to move on, in Jimmy's case in search of some better waves, in my case, a town with a little more beach life - in both the human and animal form, so off to Mancora for us it was.
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